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Today was the day! Yuuri was GOING to meet Victor Nikiforov and he was Going to get his poster signed. Yuuri had had it all planned out ever since he found out about SkateCon, and especially since he had found out that Victor would be there.
He and Phichit had gotten a room in the closest hotel and he had made sure that he was able to get up (too early) and be out the door within minutes so he could get a good spot in line. Victor had a few autograph sessions throughout the day, but Yuuri wanted to make sure he got one, so he planned to get there early.
He managed to make it to the start of the line at around eight in the morning, not too bad, the first session wasn't until 11, and it looked like he wasn't the only one who planned ahead.
Yuuri followed the line. And kept following the line. And kept following the line, until he finally found the end. This was fine. How long could it take to get through everybody?
Four hours later he had his answer. A long bleeping time (there were children nearby, he was not cursing in front of children, even in his head). At least the people around him in line were nice.
He was also grateful that Phichit had insisted he wear his nice, warm Team Japan jacket ("Maybe Victor will recognize you and you can live happily ever after!" "That's definitely not going to happen, Phichit, he'll probably think I'm just another fan or something"). The strange thing was, he'd had quite a few people compliment him on his Yuuri Katsuki cosplay, and even had a few people ask for photos of or with him. Yuuri couldn't imagine why anyone would cosplay as him, some dime-a-dozen skater from Japan. He especially couldn't understand why anyone would recognize such an obscure cosplay. He hoped he didn't look too much like a confused gremlin in all those photos. At least no one had asked for an autograph, that would have been awkward.
Around 1pm, Phichit stopped by to deliver lunch. He had been going around to all the panels, but had stopped by a couple times. His King and the Skater cosplay had also been getting a lot of attention apparently and he felt the need to update Yuuri on all his encounters regularly.
Slowly all the autograph sessions passed and Yuuri got closer and closer until he could finally see the front, just in time too since the last session was about to end.
Ten people and then it would be his turn.
Nine
Eight
Seven
Six
Five
Four
Three
Two
"Sorry everyone, but this is all we can take for today."
Yuuri could have cried (he may or may not have), a lot of people were loudly complaining about wasting the day in line for nothing. The con volunteer was sympathetic but unable to do anything.
Slowly the line dispersed. Yuuri wandered aimlessly, not knowing what to do with himself. He was so close, but ultimately had failed in his one goal. Story of his life it seemed.
Eventually he made his way back to the hotel, not feeling up to anything else for the day. He made his way to the elevators, not really paying attention.
It wasn't until he was in the elevator, the doors already closing, that something happened to snap him out of it.
"Hold the elevator!" huh, that accent sounded like Victor's.
Yuuri looked up as the man joined him in the elevator. His everything was like Victor's.
HOLY SHIT (there were no children around now) HE WAS IN THE ELEVATOR WITH VICTOR FUCKING NIKIFOROV!!!
Yuuri probably looked like a startled goldfish as he stared at Victor in shock.
Wait, why did Victor look like he was in just as much shock?
"You're Yuuri Katsuki!!"
WHAAAAATTTT!?
"Hkzsdvnsvn" Yuuri elegantly responded.
"I'm a huge fan of your skating!! It's so beautiful! I was so disappointed when you missed out on the final this year! You deserved better than second alternate! Are you a guest at SkateCon? I didn't see your name listed. Are you doing autographs? I didn’t plan to get anything signed, but I should have something in my room, oh, and I'll need to get one for Yuri Plisetsky too, he'd kill me if I didn't."
"I'm not doing autographs," Yuuri finally blurted out, "I'm not a guest, I'm just attending as a fan."
Victor seemed to deflate. "Oh, could I maybe get an autograph anyway? Or two I suppose." Victor looked far too hopeful for Yuuri to refuse… however.
"Trade?" Yuuri held out his poster to Victor, who beamed brighter when he saw what it was.
"I've heard you were a fan of mine! This is so exciting!!! Why didn't you come by earlier to get this signed? I could have had something for you to sign much easier there."
"I tried," Yuuri mumbled to the floor. "There were only a couple people in front of me when they cut off the line."
Silence, for the first time in this elevator ride. Victor was looking at him in pained shock.
"There were more people waiting?" The actual signing table was around the corner from the payment table, so it made sense that Victor would have been unable to see the line.
"Yeah, lots. I got there at eight this morning and I know there were people behind me who had been there almost as long."
"But… It ended at 6. You were all waiting for ten hours and got turned away!!"
Ding
Yuuri wasn't sure if he was grateful or disappointed that they'd finally arrived on his floor.
Victor looked at the floor number as Yuuri moved to get off the elevator.
"This is my floor," Victor looked back and saw Yuuri getting off, "Wait, are you on this floor too?! Come with me!" Victor grabbed his hand and dragged him down the hallway to a door not too far from his own.
"Please, come in," Victor said, holding the door open for Yuuri, who felt like he had been transported into some sort of fanfiction.
"Take a seat, I'll be just a moment."
Yuuri obediently sat at the desk as Victor pulled out his phone and called someone. He couldn't understand what was being said, since Victor was speaking Russian, but Victor didn't sound too happy, although he kept smiling at Yuuri as he rummaged through his stuff, so at least Victor didn't seem to be upset with him somehow.
"I've added another session tomorrow morning for anyone who couldn't get through today. Obviously it will have to be through the honor system at this point, but I've told them not to end until everyone in line has gotten their autograph. It's not fair to make you wait all day for nothing." Victor beamed at him, Yuuri was amazed at just how much he clearly cared about his fans. Yuuri smiled back.
"That's amazing! Thank you!"
"Of course! I couldn't let this injustice stand. Now," Victor held out a couple small posters and a pen to Yuuri, "you mentioned a trade?"
Yuuri shyly took the posters and pen from him and watched as Victor picked up Yuuri's poster again along with his own pen. He decided it would be too awkward to watch Victor sign it, so he turned his attention to the posters in his hand.
They were actual posters of him. How would Victor have actual posters of him? He vaguely remembered this photo shoot, but he hadn't expected to ever encounter anything from it, he couldn't even understand why everyone had been so insistent that he have posters in the first place. But here he was, holding not just one, but two. Two posters of himself that Victor Nikiforov wanted him to sign.
"Something wrong?" Victor asked, sounding genuinely concerned. He had evidently finished signing Yuuri's poster for him.
"How did you even get these? I thought they would print a few for maybe Japanese nationals and that's it."
Victor looked at him like he'd grown a second head.
"They're selling them in the dealer room." Victor said, like this was a perfectly reasonable place to find posters of some random nobody skater. "They had a whole table of them in all different sizes and poses. I considered getting larger ones, but I didn't have anywhere safe to put them for the plane ride back. And of course I had to get one for Yura too since Yakov wouldn't let him come."
Yuuri just stared.
"Do you not want to sign them? It's fine if you don't, I know you didn't come here to sign stuff. "
Victor sounded just as hurt and resigned as Yuuri had been earlier. Yuuri couldn’t allow that.
"No! It's fine, I'd be happy to sign them! I was just surprised. I just didn't think anyone would care about some dime-a-dozen skater."
Yuuri turned to the desk and quickly signed the posters, addressing one to Yuri and one to Victor (what was his life?). When he looked back at Victor he seemed to be offended?
"Some… dime-a-dozen… skater? You're the best skater in Japan! You just missed the grand prix final! You should have made the final group at world's on your components score alone! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SOME DIME-A-DOZEN SKATER!?"
Yuuri just stared at him in shock. Was Victor actually angry on his behalf? Angry at Yuuri on Yuuri's behalf? How was he supposed to respond to that? This had to be some sort of weird fanfiction. Definitely some strange au where he was actually a good skater.
After a few moments of Yuuri just staring at Victor in shocked silence, Victor’s angry offended expression dropped and he sighed. “Is that really what you think of yourself, Yuuri?”
Again, Yuuri didn’t know how to respond to that. Somehow, he didn’t think that Victor would respond well to the truth, but he also couldn’t bring himself to lie. Instead of answering he just stayed quiet and stared intently at the floor.
Victor sighed again and suddenly Yuuri’s hands were in Victor’s.
“Yuuri, I can guarantee you that you are an amazing skater and I bet if you joined me at my table tomorrow you would get plenty of people asking you for autographs too. In fact, if I’m wrong I’ll take you to dinner!” Victor was suddenly smiling at him again.
“And if you’re right?” Yuuri asked, smiling slightly too now.
“Then I’ll take you to dinner to celebrate!” Victor beamed at him. Yuuri laughed.
“So, either way you’ll take me to dinner?”
Victor nodded. “What do you say, will you join me for autographs tomorrow?”
“Well, the main thing I’ve learned in college so far is to never turn down free food, so…” Yuuri shrugged nonchalantly, but couldn’t hold back a smile.
-
The next day Yuuri met Victor at the same table that he had just narrowly missed meeting him at the day before. Today there was a second chair set up along with a piece of paper with his name on it (because people probably wouldn’t know who the random guy sitting with Victor was without it, but Yuuri wasn’t going say that and risk getting yelled at again by his idol).
Apparently, Victor had posted on all his social media accounts that he was going to be extending his autograph session (and that today Yuuri Katsuki would be joining him), so there was already quite a long line again by the time they sat down. Actually it had looked like it might have been two lines, but Yuuri hadn’t been able to see the lines all that well. Either way, there was a lot of people and Yuuri was very much looking forward to dinner with Victor later.
Yuuri was shocked when the second person in line asked him for his autograph, right next to Victor’s, as if it had any reason to be there.
The next person only wanted his autograph and not Victor’s. Yuuri just stared at them in shock until Victor nudged him and whispered “I told you.”
It turned out there was a second line after all. A line of people who were only interested in getting Yuuri’s autograph. It wasn’t as long as Victor’s, but it was still far longer than he would have ever expected, plus quite a few people from Victor’s line wanted both of their autographs.
By the time they were finally through the lines Yuuri was beginning to understand the reason for breaking up the autographs into sessions. His hand hurt. A lot. He’d noticed Victor occasionally pausing to do some hand and wrist stretches throughout the day and Yuuri tried to subtly mimic them as they walked back to the hotel.
“Give me your hand,” Victor suddenly said, holding out his hand for Yuuri’s.
“Hmm?”
“I should have thought to warn you before about how strenuous signing autographs all day could be, and shown you what to do to help, but I honestly didn’t expect that we would be there that long. But I can help now if you give me your hand.”
Yuuri hesitantly placed his writing hand in Victor’s and Victor immediately started massaging it.
Yuuri couldn’t help the quiet moan that slipped out, it felt so good. He was pretty sure he was imagining the squeak that sounded like it came from Victor in response.
By the time they made it back to their floor Yuuri’s hand was feeling much better, and Yuuri was pretty sure he must be dreaming, because there was no way that this was actually his life.
Victor paused outside his door, he seemed suddenly awkward. Yuuri broke out of his daze enough to notice Victor’s flushed cheeks and wondered what he missed while in his blissed out state. What could have caused Victor to become so flustered.
“Umm… text me when you want to get dinner, okay.” Victor spoke in a rush. “I looked up some restaurants last night, so we can decide what sounds good then okay?” He then swiped his keycard to unlock the door.
Just before the door to Victor’s room closed Yuuri remembered something. “Wait, Victor, I don’t have your number.”
“Yes, you do,” Victor smiled and winked at him as he closed the door.
Yuuri was confused as he made his way back inside his room. How would he have gotten Victor’s phone number? As he pondered this his eyes fell on the rolled up poster that Victor had signed for him yesterday. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to look at it yet, still too much in shock after everything that had happened, but now he wanted to see it, he’d figure out the mystery of the phone number later.
As Yuuri unrolled the poster another piece of paper fell out of it. Yuuri bent down to pick it up and found… a phone number, with Victor’s name and a winking smiley face with a heart shaped mouth. Yuuri stared at it for a moment, surprised (but honestly, he was starting to get used to that), and then he smiled and pulled out his phone.
He never would have expected to be so glad to have missed his chance to get Victor Nikiforov’s autograph, but as he sent a text to Victor, making plans to meet up for dinner, he couldn’t be happier that one missed opportunity had led to something so much better.